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RIVERSIDE, Calif. (CN) — A former U.S. army soldier was sentenced Thursday to two years in federal prison for posting YouTube videos in which he threatened to kill multiple military personnel at the Fort Irwin Army base in California.
Christian Beyer, 42, had pleaded guilty without a plea agreement in June to one count of sending threats by interstate communication.
U.S. District Judge Sunshine Sykes in Riverside, California, imposed the two-year prison term federal prosecutors had asked for and rejected Beyer’s bid to be sentenced to time served. He has been in jail since his arrest last year.
In their sentencing memorandum, prosecutors with the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles said Beyer has a history of domestic violence and that two days before he posted the YouTube video he purportedly brandished a knife at anelderly man before allegedly attempting to run the man over with his vehicle.
“Although defendant’s 23 years of service in the U.S. Army and reported mental health issues related to his service are important mitigating factors, these facts do not negate the seriousness of the offense, the significant impact to the victims — who have also admirably served in the U.S. Army for many years — and the danger the defendant poses to the public at large,” they wrote.
According to Beyer’s federal public defender Mariah Holder, he may have suffered brain damage from tank blasts he was chronically exposed to during his military service as an armored crewman working in and around tanks. He also was involved in a combat explosion during one of his deployments to Iraq where his tank was blown up by an improvised explosive device.
When Beyer was stationed at Fort Irwin in August 2022, he was convicted in a special court-martial proceeding of domestic violence and assault among other charges. The military personnel that Beyer threatened in his YouTube videos had testified against him at the proceeding.
In her bid for leniency, Holder argued that the basis of Beyer’s threats were deeply personal and stemmed out of a domestic dispute between him and his wife in which two friends and later two additional colleagues tried to intervene.
“Mr. Beyer did not target any of the victims because of their status as government officers,” the attorney said. “His motivation was purely personal, the result of a dispute between former friends and former colleagues.”
Holder didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the sentencing, but she had already filed a notice of appeal Thursday afternoon.
In a 3 1/2-minute video posted on Oct. 30 of last year, Beyer threatened to kill the chief of police at Fort Irwin, a master sergeant and others whom Beyer believed to be responsible for his 2021 court-martial.
“I’m calling out the people that forced me out,” Beyers told the camera. “I will fucking come and hunt you, and I’m telling you that right now and not just because I’m harboring a witness because the cops fucking made up all this shit anyway and you guys fucking ran along with them so fuck you. I’m coming for you. I’m gonna kill your whole fucking family if they stay there.”
He demanded that the master sergeant retire, and threatened further, “Your career is over or I’m going to come to Fort Irwin and kill you and everyone else in there at Fort Irwin. You have like two days or I’m coming myself, and you know I can fucking get there. I will come there with guns. And if you guys shoot me at the fucking gate good for you and if you stand there and oppose me at the fucking gate I will shoot you because you’re my enemy at that point.”
In another video posted that same day, he told the camera, “I had a great fucking life and I will fucking die for what I believe in. If you come to fucking get me and you have a fucking uniform on, you’re a fucking enemy and I will not look at you as anything else. I will fucking fight you til I take you down.”
According to the federal complaint in the Central District of California, Beyer was court-martialed in 2021 for assaulting his wife. He “pushed [his] wife, barricaded [himself] inside [his] residence with an unregistered firearm, and disobeyed lawful orders,” according to a memo written by Brig. Gen. Curtis D. Taylor and quoted in the complaint. After he was arrested, he “spit chewing tobacco on the floor of the patrol car and urinated in the police interview room.”
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